Tour Diary

Melbourne June 2003
Wednesday 4th June 2003

Most of this trip is for the specific purpose of promoting Jenny Queen's album of which I have helped write and to a lesser degree play on. Being the business-savvy kid that I am though I manage to get some of my own thing in there as well.

Naturally enough I am travelling with Jenny who is now like a big and sometimes little sister. Accompanying us is Stuart Coupe (writer but in this instance Jenny's label guy). I am the last to arrive at the airport around 10:50am and me being me, am kinda nervous about flying. As we board I kid you not Jenny and I notice a huge black cloud of smoke about a kilometre up the tarmac. I whisper to her "What the fuck is that?" to which says not to worry about nor draw attention to. Ten seconds later a middle aged woman loudly states "Look at that explosion!". Never found out what is was either.

Queenie sits inbetween Stuart and myself. As we take off she puts her hand on my shoulder. A lovely gesture. That's what I mean by big sister. She looks after me in general life and I look after her in smaller ways usually to do with music or something protective what with being a guy friend of hers. Big brother. Little brother. Stuart pipes in to take my mind off things. Upon landing I swear we are gonna bring it down on one wing. Until the flight home it was close to my worst flight. I sigh and swear under my breath when we land.

Cab to town. Check in at Victoria Hotel pretty much in China town and very central to everything. The room is pretty small for Jenny and I (Stuart stays with his brother in law I think?) but you know, I can't complain because I'm not paying for it. No cable TV though. Quick coffee then down to RMIT University for a radio interview. I am dragged onto the second microphone to talk with Jenny about writing with her which happens a bit. I don't necessarily mind this but I am not exactly over the moon either. She speaks so well and I don't. Whatever.

Try to nap back at the hotel. No success. Queen gets an hour or two I think. For some reason I haven't eaten all day. Not since last night. I can be forgetful sometimes. Cab to Rob Roy Hotel in Fitzroy. I am playing solo and with Jenny as well. Meet the Hired Guns who are headlining and turn out to be not only sweet guys but a terrific band. Morro is doing sound and he was the Pernice Brothers tour manager/soundguy so it is tops seeing him again. Soundcheck with 'The River' to impress Queenie. Hug Natalie who is doing the door. Lovely to see her. Shayne and CC come early and we go to the Hideout down the road. (Last here when with Pernice Brothers). Burger, chips and salad. Great place.

Back to venue. Play to a small but attentive crowd. Quite possibly the smallest Melby show I have done for a few reasons; mid week, small promotion and was only here three weeks ago for my launch. Still, I was going to be here anyway so it was all good. Lovely venue I gotta say.

Set goes something like:
Until Sunrise
Birthday
My Friend and a Free Day
Scotty Come Home
747
My Darling (Juliana Hatfield)
Slow Down Girl (for Teri in Sydney and Natalie in Melbourne)
House Near Bridge (with interlude of Neil Young's 'Stringman').

Catch up with Laura and her crew, Luke and Bernadette, Chris and a few others.

Jenny and I do our duo thing. She kicks it. We do the Steve Earle / Lucinda Williams song except I am Lucinda and she is Steve. Jenny plays two songs with Hired Guns which is pretty fine I gotta say.
Drink some beer as I await Hired Guns. They don't disappoint. Alt-country with some J.Mascis inspired solo work to these ears. Adam does most of the singing and is great. When Chris stepped up though, for me it got even better. Luke and I drink jugs of beer as we get off on the folk-rock. In some ways Luke had a big hand in my love of alt-country so it is even sweeter watching this tonight with him.

There is no air in the venue and I need some. I go outside and it is pretty chilly which is how I like it. Feel better outside; felt a migraine coming on which I then realise is from not eating. Tip for musicians: stand outside the venue door after the show if you want accolades. Say goodbye literally to everyone as they leave and thank them for coming along. Finally Jenny and Stuart come out and we cab it back to town dropping Stuart off on the way. He asks the driver to leave us near the hotel at a restaurant. Keep in mind it is 1am on a Thursday morning. We enter this 24hr joint which serves Greek food. I am delirious from the flight, the show, the beer, the no food etc. I know I need to eat but I am scared of eating anything solid incase I bring it back up. I order water and bread. Queenie has Queenie food. She is talking and I am listening but cannot muster anything up. A weird sensation. I tell her I need sleep pretty soon. As we leave I realise we
are in the somewhat legendary Stalictites. My brother loves the old Melbourne act Weddings, Parties, Anything and they wrote a song about this place which he used to sing out of key to me a lot. I smile and then feel like I am gonna die.

We walk back to the hotel. A shower always cheers me up and I feel a little better. I apologise to Jenny but she understands. I sleep pretty easy tonight for the first time in a while. Apparently too much. Around 4am I awake to see her reaching for her headphones. She tells me I am snoring! I feel so bad but to be honest just drift back to my slumber.

Thursday 5th June 2003
Queenie goes out shopping this morning and I sleep in. Around 1pm I meet Aaron Reiter and Chris out the front of the hotel and we head down to Brunswick Street Fitzroy. Aaron takes us to what he calls the finest
vegetarian cafe in Melbourne. I break with the vegetarianism on his behalf by having some sorta kebab. These guys make me laugh. A long lunch spent catching up. Then head off to get some coffee and as we do, Aaron is checking out the place. He manages a cafe himself you see. I ask him lots of cafe-releated questions. They drop me back to the hotel around 3pm.

Jenny and I cab it to Radio PBS where we are greeted by one of the managers who I think was called Steve. Totally nice guy. He pronounces my name with ease and as I laugh, he tells me of a Mark Shinazzi in outer New York which is where he is from. The small world gets smaller when his part of the States is the same as Jenny's partner. Jenny is interviewed by (I think) David Heard and I am asked to speak. We perform 'Kentucky Turn' and 'Between the Riverbank and the Highway'. I amazed at the professionalism of PBS and RRR; in Sydney we have 2SER which does a great job and FBI is starting up and that will be grand, but I don't know...there is something special about these stations and those that run it.

By now I realise that tragedy has struck. My black beanie (almost as famous as Badly Drawn Boy's) is gone. AWOL. MIA. I lost it somewhere out with Aaron and Chris. I am shattered. Not only the perfect beanie but the memories attached to it are endless. We cab it to RRR or at least we think we are. Turns out we are given the wrong suburb but right street address. Seriously late, Jenny is understandably a little rattled until she calls the station and works out what's gone wrong. 8:20pm we arrive and Jenny jumps straight onto the microphone for easily her best interview yet conducted by Neil Rogers I believe.

We head back to the hotel and go next door to the Chinese restaurant. Jenny feels a little sick and I am happy to have a quiet one as we have a pretty full Friday coming up the following day. After ordering, Alice calls and I rudely chat to her whilst Jenny awaits the food.

Back in the room Jenny is feeling pretty crook so she rugs up whilst I brave the Melbourne air and get her some tea and choclate. It is freezing but I wouldn't have it any other way. Beautiful. I aim to get a Sydney newspaper to catch up on the league news but I get laughed out of all the 7-11's. They tell me to try a newsagent in the morning. End up having a conversation with a nice young guy in the final convenience store I hit (so to speak). He asked why I wanted a Sydney paper and what I was doing here. Turns out back in India he played the drums specialising in jazz so we talked drums for a few minutes. I told him to go buy a cheap kit and to get back into it. I will check on his progress if we stay here again.

Jenny falls asleep so I do the gentlemanly thing and turn off the TV. Listen to the little stereo Ace lent me. New Pete Yorn 'Day I Forgot' sounds amazing as I try to doze. It's funny; both Jenny and I are what you
would technically call insomniacs but on this trip we take it in turns. So tonight I am restless and because it is such a small room everytime I turn I feel like I am waking her up and that is magnified because she isn't feeling so great. I must have gotten some sleep because I am pretty sure this time she said "Sam, dude you're snoring" I guess to try and break the snoring which she does.

Friday 6th June 2003
We have to check out by 11am so Jenny is up before me. Leave our bags downstairs which is convenient. Walk a short distance down the same street as the hotel and find lots of cool little alleyways full of shops and the like very similar to New York apparently. I so wished I'd found these places earlier but I am not a particularly great explorer. (see other diaries for such stories of getting horribly lost).

We are doing an instore at Basement Discs and I swear to God, aside from my beloved Waterfront / Whammo I haven't seen such a brilliant and homely music store. I wonder to myself what my friends were smoking as to why they didn't tell me about this place. We meet the lovely folks there. Now I am terrible with names so I hope I get this right but I am pretty sure it's Suzanne who was so super nice to Jenny and I; it's her and her husband who own the shop and some other really sweet people working there.

We soundcheck on the small stage and I find out Ron Sexsmith (who I quite admire) has played this very stage on all four tours as did Josh Rouse. I should point out the store pretty much caters for lovers of folk, country, blues and then some surrounding genres as well. Ernie the soundguy turns out to be Ernie who works with Frankie Death and is mates with my mates Liz and Brad. Even smaller world. Great guy, great sound.

Jenny and I walk about three doors back and have some breakfast. She is feeling better thankfully because we still have a bunch to do. Coffee and toast for me. Back to the store and just like they had said, on the dot of 12:45pm the people came and filled out the store. It is so great doing instores; lots of silence and no smoke. We play a great set to an attentive audience. Some people are even mouthing the words.

Straight after they prop a desk and chair up on the stage for Jenny to sign cd's which is both funny and amazing because she signs quite a few. A fella named Will urges me to come to talk to him which I do. He has a story to tell and it is a pretty good one too. Turns out he was best friends with Dave from the Triffids who he doesn't think I know because apparently I am young. I surprise him by saying my brother was a massive fan; anyway, he gives me some of his literature work and then I have to do some other stuff. I sign a CD for the owners which again is both funny and amazing. They let us pick a CD each. Jenny gets the new Gillian Welch and I go for the new Peter Bruntnell. Both are great choices. We are also given issues of Rhythms Magazine and some posters etc.

Suzanne even escorts me around the busy laneways to find the nearest toilet as she did with Jenny; they treat us too nice! I leave my things back at the store and have lunch at the pie place nearby with Laura. It is awesome hanging out here with her because usually we are at a show or somewhere rushing but today we just hang for close to an hour and catch up. I meet Jenny back at Basement Discs, collect our things and say goodbye to our new friends.

PLUG:
Basement Discs open 7 days located at 24 Block Pl Melbourne 3000. Ph:03 9654 1110 Fax: 03 9654 1743
info@basementdiscs.com.au www.basementdiscs.com.au

We meet Jenny's Distributor Didgeridoo representative who is again really nice (common theme today) and helpful. She takes us for lunch. I must say it is great to have people looking out for us. I mean, I am sure we could be looked after better but then again, as in my case referring to companies, we could be not looked after at all. The difference is noticeable.

As I hinted at before we switch hotels and repeating the line above, the difference is noticeable. Jenny's partner who I like to call MT is coming down for the weekend. We stay at The Como across town near or in South Yarra and it is the classiest place I have ever stayed. Bordering on luxurious.

MT and I have some Crown Lager and then we all head off to the Elwood RSL. We are playing with Jenny's label mate Jack Howard. Jack used to play trumpet in the quite legendary Hunters and Collectors and is a sweet guy. We are a little taken aback by the venue; I thought it might be a seperate band room type of thing but it was pretty much a small RSL in one room aside from the restaurant and pokies. I have the chicken parmijarna (can't spell it) which rocks.

Jack's band plays a set first and they are really impressive. Country rock with some soulful vocals. Jenny and I set up, we are then introduced to which people applauded quite forcefully. Jenny was billed as being from America which you know, she is but she lives in Sydney. I guess someone without us knowing were billing us as coming from America to play this weekend. What I thought would be the first bum note of the trip turns out to be more than fine. We do the Earle/Williams thing again which the folks like.

Jack then plays his second set which is a little more fun and gets the people up dancing. Jenny does a great job as the raffle girl. Sadly MT and I don't win the case of beer. Speaking of which, we drink some more beer. JQ, MT and I head back to the hotel. Watch Rage and some cable (!) and then we order room service which is too good. Club sandwich and beer. Quite happy by now thanks to the beer. I take the longest shower ever and then crash on the couch. The others are off too. Listen to Peter Bruntnell which sounds beautiful. Comfy lounge too. Doze from around 4am I think.

Saturday 7th June 2003
Jenny and MT are watching The Simpsons when I awake. We order breakfast and then I just kinda loaf. MT goes out and Jenny has a bath in the biggest bath I have seen. I gather all my stuff and we head to St.Kilda. We are doing an instore at Cosmos Books. We set up and play about 30 minutes from 2:30pm. Very cruisy, some people there specifically for us and some just browsing. Little kids even which is kinda funny. Feels good to be doing the last of our duties. I hug Jenny goodbye as CC and Shayne will be babysitting me until my flight tonight.

We head to a restaurant on Ackland Street and have some pizza and cola. We spend a long time there just chatting and I feel happy because I am with mates eating pizza and don't have to be anywhere else. About 90 minutes later we drive along the Formula One track which is actually very scenic. End up finally going to the Crown Casino. Bizarre place. Cool in it's own way I guess. I work out that the casino is actually a pokie joint with some blackjack tables. We cruise the complex. It has everything. Watch my Sharks lose again to NZ on a small screen, explain to CC and Shayne what Chris Anderson has done to the club. Not happy. End up in an arcade joint there. Shayne and I play a soccer game where you actually get to kick a ball for power. Crazy. Score off first shot from halfway line, then Shayno kicks my ass. CC plays some karate type thing and kills a bunch of things very impressively.

Drive to the airport. I make my friends laugh by literally running to the nearest toilet once inside. Casino beer. Say goodbye to my mates and thank them for the ride.

The plane ride back is my worst ever. Terrifying. Bad weather obviously didn't help. The plane goes up and down, side to side. I am honestly thinking the worst. I then cast my mind to the rock cliche of musicians dying on planes and think "Well, no one in the mainstream knows me...it can't crash". I turn around to see Ben Ely from Regurgitator and Yumi from Channel V with their child and think "This is all your fault!".
Again, we come in for landing seemingly on one wing until it puts all wheels down. I cannot believe it, I am home safe and sound. My folks meet me and my Dad is driving again after his health problems for the first time. He looks proud of himself and well he might. He then proceeds to drive home at 35kph. Hug Fred the Cat and watch the second golden point game in NRL history as the Panthers beat the Cowboys. Great to be home.

Thanks to Jenny for the laughs, music and quality time; MT for the hospitality and laughs; Basement Discs for being traditional and beautiful; everyone that came to one of the events, all my Melby mates. Sorry if I got anyone's names wrong...it's a problem.